It is 1780 (five years after Dr. Manette was brought to London from Paris). Tellson's Bank in London prides itself on inconvenience. If it were welcoming or easy to store money there, then it would lose status. It is obstinate to change and populated by old, withering men. Dickens likens this to the British government at the time. Dickens also tells us that three quarters of the laws in London were punishable by death. He says that crowds gather and make a festival out of public executions, which were very common.
             Jerry Cruncher, an odd-jobs man employed by Tellson's as a runner and messenger, wakes up in his house. He immediately yells at his wife for praying "against him," and trying to bring bad luck upon him. He is very suspicious of her religious nature and is quite mean to her. He and his son take their place outside Tellson's Bank and wait for Cruncher's first job. The first job takes Jerry as a messenger to Old Bailey's (the courthouse where many criminals are tried). He is to stand in the back of the courtroom in case Jarvis Lorry (who is participating in the trial) needs a messenger. It is the trial of Charles Darnay for treason. Cruncher and the rest of the crowd in the courtroom are excited for bloodshed. Traitors are disemboweled, beheaded, and dismembered publicly.
             Cruncher sees Darnay look at Lucie and her father, who are witnesses for the prosecution. Lucie looks at Darnay with such pity and compassion that the crowd is momentarily inclined to feel sorry for Darnay. The trial is completely unfair: the judge and jury have already assumed that Darnay is guilty. Darnay is accused of giving information about British troops in the American Revolution to the French (who aided the Americans against the British). John Barsad, the man who turned Darnay in, is called to the stand as well as Roger Cly, Darnay's hired servant. Both men seem unreliable to the reader, but the judge and jury believe their testimony against Da...